


letters better left unsent

by cereal_whore



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Insecure Lance (Voltron), Keith & Shiro (Voltron) are Siblings, allura and keith are the smoking hot badass bitches, au where marco h8 his family, bc they all expect him to say 'polo', but lance is having fun and still confident bc he complex like that, each time they call his name, has the mind of a millenial., lance and allura are badass bitches, lance cannot roll with the punches and instead he makes the punches, lance isn't actually dumb tho he just, lance plays minecraft unironically bc i gotta self project, no beta and you can tell i clearly didn’t revise, oc: mina who's finna be keith's ex girlfriend, over abuse use of italics, pidge will black out from lance's stupidity, this is deadass just all for fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 01:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18378029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cereal_whore/pseuds/cereal_whore
Summary: “Wait, so let me get this straight, you wrote five love letters, and apparently the recipients of them actually got them?”Lance McClain has the ferocious intensity to just die because five of his love letters written throughout his life with addresses towards all the receivers were just sent. They were never meant to be sent. The contents of all those letters are too embarrassingly Lance-like to send, but apparently Satan and God were in alignment this April 7th at exactly 12:01:22pm and decided that Lance McClain's social life must be exterminated for mankind's wellbeing.Therefore, because Lance already proven to have poor judgement and questionable forethought, he finds himself hand-in-hand with a new (fake) boyfriend, Keef Kogane, as a somehow temporary and foreshadowing disaster of a solution.OR: to "All the Boys I've Loved Before" au accomplished through Lance's dumbassery.





	letters better left unsent

He’s going to die.

Either because he throws in the towel or because Allura’s going to beat his ass for being so dumb.

 

Or once she reads how he wrote about her ‘shimmery blue eyes’ that could drown him faster than Vanessa could when they were younger and shared baths. He’s not much of a poet.

 

“Look, this is all a _giant_ misunderstanding-” Lance sputters, watching as Keith, in all of his pathetic 5’7 glory, quirks an eyebrow as if _he’s_ the intimidating one with the upperhand. Literally. Clenched in his gloved hand waving above his head so that Lance has to be eye-level with it in spite of how many times he attempted to avert his eyes and _not_ stare at it, is a crisp, baby blue envelope that gives no indication of its age unlike the yellowed paper it holds. The message on the said paper only worsens the situation: it’s scrawled with third-grade Lance’s handwriting talking about how he’s thirsty over Keith’s dumb mullet and horrendous scowl hammered across his delicately pretty features.

“A giant misunderstanding? No, your letter was really sure about how hot you found our kiss in third-grade over that one game of spin the bottle where we used a Sprite can we thought was empty but clearly wasn’t after the first spin sent soda spewing over Allura’s new skirt.”

Despite the seriousness of this situation (seriously, Lance’s life is _over_ ), he finds himself snorting by the unexpectedness of Keith’s humor in such an awkward situation. “Kogane, I was in _third-grade_ when I wrote that. I mean, for fuck’s sake, look at the handwriting!”

“Your handwriting’s still bad, the only way I really knew it was you from the past was the fact that you used “coolio” in your sentences. Edgy bastard.”

“You still wear Hot Topic fingerless gloves.” Lance snaps, sticking out his tongue.

Okay. Maybe this entire day isn’t a disaster. Clearly, Small Lance’s poorly written love letter isn’t a source of humiliating entertainment to Kogane, who appears not creeped out by all this after all.

“Wait? That’s a love letter?”

Lance squawks in indignation; he completely forgot Pidge was in this scene. Probably because of how short she was. However, Pidge, the absolute monster with godly powers, easily leaps up like twelve feet and snags the paper out of Keith’s hand, probably to tear it open and use it as a permanent spawn of blackmail against Lance. So, out of quick thinking, he yanks Pidge’s glasses off her face, cussing out at her as she shrieks and tries to deconstruct his kneecap with a hard kick from her shoes.

“Pidge, if you read that letter I will smudge your lenses with my _greasy_ hands-”

And before Pidge can gnaw on his wrist like the gremlin she is, he shoves the glasses down his shirt.

He finally rounds to Keith, who’s staring at them with muted horror yet obvious amusement, as he calmly says: “so. We can just ignore that you ever received that letter, because you were _never_ supposed to find that.”

“Why do you have a letter from nine years ago anyways?”

Lance feels his skin flush intensely at that personally inappropriate question because _how dare he_ question Lance McClain’s mysterious intentions, and snarks in retort, “I don’t know. Why do you have a haircut from ninety-years ago?”

“Lance stop bringing up my hair _-_ ”

But before criminally super-hot for his short height Keith Kogane can deck Lance in the face with his field-hockey stick (Lance guesses that even though the problem appears to be solved and the world isn’t ending, he still gotta die) Pidge saves the day through her own blasphemous act. She shoved her clammy, cold-ass tiny hands up his shirt to seek out her glasses, and he very-manly screeches at her sweaty palms slapping against his skin that leave imprints of goosebumps and the scent of hand sanitizer, before yanking her glasses out from underneath.

Feeling very much violated, he hugs himself, flipping off Pidge as she stalks off. He quickly realizes that _she still has the note meant for Keith_ , and that he _cannot_ have her read that since it’s basically the epitome of a bad diary entry from a ten-year-old girl who bitches about Kennedy in class while talking about the perks of Joshua Willems who sit next to them in History.

But before he can run off and punt that rascal, he spies his current crush, who’s a senior and basically the school’s unaware mascot, walking by. Shiro.

Hesitating, he sees out of his periphial vision Keith glancing in confusion at his sudden frozen expression. “Oh my god.” He whispers, his vision fixating on what’s in Shiro’s hand not occupied with five-years of school depression and textbooks. _“Oh my GOD-”_

It’s a _very_ familiar pale pink envelope, whose contents are _not_ written in third-grade handwriting and instead way-too current eleventh-grade Lance’s handwriting and therefore cannot be excused as a small, ex-crush. He faintly realizes that the sense of calm before calamity from five seconds ago was a fucking _lie_ and that he really is going to die and if he doesn’t, he hopes the universe folds in on itself and digests any form of existence and substantially CRUSHES everything.

 _“OH MY GOD-”_ And since Lance’s day was already bad enough, he figures that he might as well make everything worse because by this point he _knows_ he’s not ending this day alive and he’s going to make sure of that. So leans over, shoving an unsuspecting Keith to the grainy ground of his school’s track field, and feeling a moment of guilt at planning his next action without explicit consent (but then ignoring it because if Keith throttles him for this, he’ll honestly thank him) and kisses him. Obscenely hard and awfully so.

His facial muscles scrunching at Keith’s supremely offensively chapped lips and sound of disgruntled surprise that slip through the boy’s lips, he doesn’t trust himself to look up in case if Shiro’s still there. Because if there’s anything that’s going to chase away confrontational Shiro who’s always firm in his actions, is making out with his younger brother in public. Lance is _determined_ to avoid any sense of confrontation, and he’d rather die than have Shiro (also his neighbor. _Oh my god. Also his_ neighbor) ask him what’s up with his seriously thirsty letter to him.

“McClain!”

Looking up to find the source of the commanding bark, he glances at Coach Sendak looking on with slight disgust yet tired expetance over Lance pulling shit like this in the middle of gym class. “Run another lap, McClain, before I deduct points for being a failure.”

“Aye, aye, Captain!”

“McClain I’m going to fail you. Let’s see how your mom reacts to a F in a _gym_ class.”

“Sendak-”

 _“Coach_ Sendak.”

“My Cuban mom will disown me and flay me alive to make empanadas out of me and you know that.”

“Hm. Well maybe you can explain how you were as kids these days say, ’making out’ so she’ll be more understanding of your predicament? Because you were having a ‘moment’ with Kogane, who should actually be practicing with the rest of his team so I don’t know why he’s even _here_. Do I need to call over Coach Clarice? Maybe she’ll bench you for your next season.” Lance takes momentary satisfaction at Keith’s pout.

“Okay, I came here because I didn’t know when else I’d see Lance, I had to tell him something that all actually was started because of _him-_ ” Keith gripes.

“A-are you throwing me under the bus over something that isn’t _my_ fault?”

“You sent that letter!”

“No, no I didn’t! In fact, when you showed me it I thought I was going to blow chunks of McNuggets over your dumb, sweaty uniform! You actually owe _me_ for giving me so much anxiety in a matter of two-point-zero-ten milliseconds and a suicidal thought of the world ending over a dumb note!”

“I- _what?_ You’re going to throw up over me like you did nine years ago at Mina’s birthday party-”

He gasps. “Do _not_ bring that up or else I’ll inflict dishonor onto your ancestors-”

“McClain, hit the track _now_ or else I’m upping your laps to twelve.”

“Whoa, whoa, from one to _twelve_ isn’t that a bit unfair?”

“Fourteen laps, McClain.”

Lance runs.

* * *

 

“Wait, so let me get this straight, you wrote five love letters, and apparently the recipients of them actually _did_ get them?” Hunk chokes on his sandwich, laughter scribbling over his hacking and that’s it, he’s demoted from right-hand man.

“It appears so.” Lance groans, graciously pretending as if his _supposed_ close and intimate pal isn’t currently dying over laughing at Lance Fisting his luscious hair and ruining his twenty-minutes of preparation he invests each morning into grooming it, Lance crumples his features to signify the seriousness of his emotions. “Seriously, the universe just curb-stomped on my entire existence and then gave me a middle-finger. I like, seriously was considering just forcing a heart-attack onto myself-”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.” Pidge mutters.

“When I saw Kogane walk over with that note. Okay, but get this-”

“He didn’t kill you.” Pidge finishes, and to his disdain, Hunk solemnly nods at Pidge’s statement.

“No, not that! I saw Shiro seconds later, and _he had a note too.”_

Now this time, rather than just Hunk having a second melt-down, _Pidge_ , who’s unmoveable and has absolutely no reaction other than resentment and anger to everything (sorta like Keith, but to a lesser and more malicious degree), blinks at his statement.

“You wrote a letter over Shiro? Allura’s ex-boyfriend?”

Slapping a hand over Hunk’s mouth, who in turn snorts in surprise (what is he, a horse?), Lance makes an unintelligent sound portrayed in letters as a keyboard smash, before hissing, “be a little louder and tell the entire world that I was swooning over Allura’s ex, won’t you?”

“Wait, but you said that you wrote Allura a letter too?”

“Hey, I can be horny over two people at once.” Lance shrugs, ignoring how revulsion contorts Pidge’s features. “But yeah. Like. I saw Shiro holding a letter, and it’s _worse_ because he literally _just_ broke it off with ‘Llura right? So I was like ‘oh shit’ so I tackled Keith to the ground and kiss him.”

And really, his realm of reality must’ve dipped its toes into the Twilight Zone atmosphere and swapped certain factors with parallel dimension, because he got Pidge to genuinely pay attention to him and even react outside of the emotions of scorn and burning fire of hate, for the second time today.

_“What?”_

“Your entire life was going down the drain and you thought kissing someone who you haven’t talked to in almost ten years after one elementary school party with a high-school game that resulted in you throwing up in said someone’s lap would make things better?”

“I cannot _believe_ you just brought that up-”

“Ladies, ladies, you’re both pretty.” Pidge intervenes sarcastically, though her amber eyes are scarily fixated on Lance with unnerving concentration. She’s not blinking. “Did you write the letter in the same way you wrote Keith’s?” Lance’s bones melt on spot because he forgot Pidge is currently in possession of one of his letters and therefore could literally ask him to streak across the school field and he would do it. She has too much power. “Lance. Who else got the letters?”

Lance takes a moment, humming. “Well, the known are Keith and Shiro. Let’s hope Allura doesn’t get one but if she does that doesn’t change much. I mean, she _knew_ I had a crush on her for like, forever-”

“Everyone knew.” Pidge states bluntly.

“Oh my God. _Lotor’s_ going to get one-”

“You liked _Lotor?”_ Pidge bristles, her glasses flashing dangerously and obscuring her eyes like mad scientists in those animes do right before they kill someone.

“Man. I don’t like judging people and I do like to look the good in everyone...but I don’t even _want_ to look for any good in Lotor and his group of cartoonish villainy girl-gang who once gave set fire to Professor Slav’s lab.” Hunk whimpers, and Lance supposes that if kind-hearted Hunk didn’t like someone, then really his standards must be _low_.

“Hey, I was a horny kid, and Lotor’s hot.”

“Okay, could you at least pass off the note as not yours?”

“Uh, this note was written around two years ago.”

“Ohhh, so his pre-jerk era when he actually was a good kid and was like Allura’s bestie and not Instagram-popular rival.”

“Hm. Imagine thinking that you could compete with Allura in the most followers? Like? I don’t even like social media yet I hacked over a thousand accounts to follow her.” Pidge’s tongue kisses the back of her teeth, as she shakes her head slowly.

“You did _what?”_ Lance stares.

“And I even created a personal account to follow her because I need to keep up on the times, and everyone knows that Allura basically creates generational trend.” Pidge admits disgruntledly. “But seriously, if Lotor knows you sent that note, he will probably expose it to everyone and your life will be legitimately _hell_.”

“Uh, I didn’t sign it with my name I think, I signed it with something worse.” He ashens. “I signed it with ‘your baby forever, xxxxxxxxx xoxo lancey’”.

“What the _fuck-”_

“Like. Unironically? Lance what the actual heck?” Pidge answers after having an an aneurysm to Lance’s dark confession that he’s regretting to spill, since Hunk is now spilling chocolate milk out of his nose harder than his tears of laughter are jetting out.

“I don’t know. I saw a television show and the female protagonist like. Was writing a love note and seh wrote down a shitton of ‘x’s so like. And like, Lotor used to call me ‘Lancey’ in an affectionate way. I mean now of course he says it to make fun of me but-”

Sighing, Pidge just readjusts her glasses, adn wow who know that such a small and inconsequential movement could convey so much disappointment? To the side, Hunk just buries his head in his hands. Either to hide his laughter, or because Lance is clearly hopeless, he’s unsure.

“Okay, okay. With the Lotor thing, we can just pretend like we don’t know what he’s talking about. There’s no real proof to link that letter to you, and instead we can lie it off.” Lance nods furiously- he likes that idea. Lying is good. “With the Shiro thing....I guess all you can admit to is that you do have a crush on him, but you don’t want anything to happen and you didn’t mean for that to send, and to not tell Allura.” Pidge begins to strategize, and wow he retracts his inner thought of revoking their best-friend labels because though they’re clearly deriving humor out of him being an utter dumbass, they’re still his main support and solution systems.

“And with the Allura one, she knows you’re over him.” It’s left unsaid that she got over him simply because he developed a crush on her future-boyfriend (who’s ironically an ex now). “Just tell her you accidentally sent that and it means nothing.”

“Okay, okay. I can do that.” Lance clenches his fists.

“And who’s the last one?”

Lance takes a second to recall. “Nyma.”

This time, neither of them reply as theatrically, and to his concern, Hunk, beautiful, tan Hunk, ashens to a sickly grey. “Nyma? Girlfriend of Rolo? The drug-dealer?”

“Yeah...honestly I’m way more concerned about this one than the others. Rolo’s a hothead, if he finds out about that letter….”

“Yeah but that letter is old. I wrote it like. Freshmen year when I thought I was only into girls so I chose the blondest and most popular girl to force myself to have a crush on.”

“Fam, they won’t know the letter is old. Rolo’s like. Sketchy as hell,” Pidge shifts, her eyebrows pinching together over her narrowing eyes. “I’ve heard he’s been getting involved in way more dangerous shit- like stripping car parts and selling them, and going into way more hardcore drugs.”

Lance groans, and collapses onto Pidge, who yowls, attempting to push his heavy weight off her shoulder. “Lance!”

“Pidddge-” he drawls out her name, clinging onto her wiry frame. “Why is this happening to me? I don’t even know how those letters got out!”

“You were donating clothes right?” Hunk says, recalling how two days ago they were together in Lance’s disorganized and grossly disastrous room, attempting to sort through his mess to donate things. Where did you put the letters?”

“In this shoebox that dad left for me.”

“It’s possible we accidentally left them outside, and when the mailmen helped pack them for donating, they sent the letters thinking we left them there by mistake.”

A noise indistinguishable from a pterodactyl with digestive problems gurgles out Lance’s mouth, muffled by Pidge’s shoulder that he buried his face in. Pidge drop kicks his phone.

* * *

Lance realizes he can’t go home. Home. Which is right next to Shiro’s house. And even worse, Keith. Because Keith lives with Shiro as an adopted brother.  

Which is how he finds himself in his fourth hour just sitting at the table of the Lion’s cafe, unironically playing Minecraft on his computer after finishing his chem. He feels a lot better after having his sixth sugar-loaded macchiato served to him by Allura, who he explained that the letter she received today from him was all a mistake and from the past.

“So, Lance,” Allura states, collapsing beside him, probably on her break time. He’s not even frustrated as a creeper blows him up from his concentrating shifting over to her. He’s actually really really thankful towards his lord and savior who hasn’t made things weird between him and ‘Llura. He actually quite likes her. “I gotta say. Your letter, with that little stick-figure drawing you made of me-” He groans loudly, ignoring how the couple from a nearby booth looks at him with wide eyes and concerned gazes. “It was a lot more romantic than the majority of love letters I’ve ever received. Ever thought about working for Hallmark?”

“Shut it, you conceited hag.”

“Hm, really, a way with words,” she says with her prim and distinctively British accent, as she takes a sip out of his drink. Witch.

He really prefers the mocking, almost sibling-like relationship he has with her the same way he has with Vanessa and his other eight sisters who are in college, over the one he had back in freshman year where it was mostly him idolizing her without really getting to know her. Back then, he would’ve never insulted her the same way he does now, since back then he was an innocent, wide-eyed froshie who wasn’t aware of how much of a badass bitch Allura is.

“So, how are you and Shiro?” He swallows, as he has an intense anime-flashback to five hours ago when he first found out all his love letters were sent out.

At this, Allura stills slightly, her lashes flitting downwards and are just _that_ long, that they cast shadows across her cheekbones. A _pretty_ bitch.

“I don’t know. He seems awkward whenever he sees me,” she admits, her voice cracking slightly near the end. “But I did break up with him, I guess.”

At this, Lance shoves aside his laptop. “Do you regret breaking up with him?”

“Of course I do, but I still know it’s for the better. I mean, we’re both going off to college. And we’re going to opposite ends of the states. I don’t want us to like. Distance each other due to our inability to see each other and we just gradually lose interest and it ends up with both of us wishing we were breaking up. I want us to still have a positive imagine of each other, one where we both still want each other.”

And damn, is that not Rupi Kaur poetic. Or Shel Silverstein. Same thing. At this, Lance, though he personally has an opposing idea of what he would’ve done in her situation, still empathizes and comprehends the weight of reality and accuracy in her claim. So he just nods. “Yeah,” he says softly. “I hope you two still quickly heal and become good friends, though.”

“Yeah, I mean. I only broke up with him what- three days ago? It makes sense that he’s going to be distant.” She says sagely. “And we have around four months left of school. He better start talking to me before summer.” she scoffs. “I’m still looking forward to that Six-Flag trip we’ve been planning for months now with everyone else.”

“YES!” Lance cheers. “God I’m so excited for that. Every other time we’re there Hunk _never_ goes on because of his weak stomach, but with you there I can finally scream on Bizarro with someone else without looking like a lonely loser!”

“I mean, you’ll most definitely still look like a lonely loser but at least with a hot person next to you who’ll be screaming with you!” She cheers, holding both of his hands now, shaking them excitedly.

“You overly-arrogant witch!” Lance says with equal enthusiasm that parallels their tones from seconds ago.

“You love me for it!” Allura remarks with the same zeal.

“Uh, what is happening?” A third party states, interrupting their bonding moment, and Lance looks up ready to fight whoever’s judging Allura, but instead, feels cement concrete his bones into stiff rods. Keith is glancing at them, and Allura just snorts, unaware of Lance’s inner screaming.

“Yeah, nothing much.” Allura stands up, brushing off the apron cinched around her waist. “Okay, so I have to get back on shift in like a hot minute, so love you, Lance.” She blows a kiss towards him and he flips her off jokingly, smiling at how Allura’s eyes crinkle in amusement.

God she’s so beautiful in every way and he will literally die for her.

“So, what’s up Keith?” He says, hoping his voice doesn’t sound strained. He opens up his computer, ready to act like he’s distracted and can’t talk.

“I just needed to ask about your letter and- are you playing Minecraft?”

He quickly snaps shut his computer, lowkey-screaming way too quickly, “No!”

“Yeah, okay.” Keith sits down at the chair across of the table, uninvited. “Anyways, I just. Feel like I need to fully turn you down you know. Like. I’m not into you, and I just. Have this weird shaky relationship with Mina right now and I kinda still like her so-”

“Yeah, don’t worry Kogane. I’m not into you. And you know that, we already went over how the letter was from third-grade,” Lance expounds, as he tries to figure out how to open up his computer and look like he’s not playing Minecraft.

“I know. But...it seemed like you still liked me considering how you decided to kiss me-”

That triggers Lance’s fight-or-flight response, and for once, he nearly went with the first and had to resist dumping his macchiato over Keith’s dumb face. It’s the knowledge of how this macchiato is basically overpriced chocolate milk and not worth wasting over Keith, that convinces him to put down his hand.

“Look, I was doing that to make sure Shiro doesn’t think I like him-”

“Shiro? My brother-” Keith’s face is slowly projecting disgust, and Lance wishes he never opened his mouth because damn he forgot that Keith basically worships his older brother. “Wait what does he even have to do with all of this?”

“Uh. He may have gotten a letter too.” He doesn’t expose how that letter, unlike Keith’s, wasn’t written by his younger self and instead, is fairly recent and obviously so. “And he was walking by, so I thought the best thing to do was make out with his younger brother.”

“We did _not_ make out it was just you and your weird chicken nugget breath over my lips.”

Feeling self-conscious by that yet slightly impressed that Keith was able to correctly identify today’s lunch he had, he flat-out ignores that statement. “I was _panicking_ I didn’t know what else to do, okay. So yeah like. I decided to kiss you. But that kiss means _nothing._ ”

“Okay. Cool. So you have a thing for my older brother-”

“I do _not_.”

“Who recently broke up with Allura-” Keith’s eyes widen. “Dude, does Allura know about this? She’ll actually be so upset unless if you explain to her that it was an old letter.” _Well, the problem Mr. Smarty-pants is that it’s not an old letter and you can tell it was written by recent-me because I reference interactions between me and him that occurred around this year._ Not like he’s going to tell Keith that he had a crush on Shiro even though during that time he was already together with Allura. His only saving grace was that the crush was unintended and actually developed before he started dating his ex-crush.

“Actually, Allura got a letter too.”

Keith pauses, a look of judgement that Lance does _not_ appreciate crossing his face. “What? That’s like? Three letters? How many did you send in total? I thought I was the only one-”

“I sent like. Five.”

“ _Five?_ Damn. And here I thoguth I was special.” Lance rolls his eyes. “Lance I know you’re the self-proclaimed Ladies’ Man though that title has been disproven many times-” Keith promptly ignores Lance’s kick at his leg from underneath the table. “But I didn’t know you had it in you! Who are the other recipients?”

“I’m sorry what?”

“Like. The other receivers.”

“I know what recipients are, thanks.” Lance snaps. “But uh, I’m not telling you.” he shortly recalls Pidge and Hunk’s expressed disapproval and disappointment at Lance’s dumbassery. He does not need that list of people judging his remorseful actions to grow.

“Oh. So I guess I’ll just tell Allura that you sent a love letter to Shiro-”

Lance inhales sharply, slamming his drink to the table and easily regretting it (wow he’s been regretting a lot of things today) since some of the sticky drink splattered across his keyboard. “You _wouldn’t_.”

“I mean. That’s probably what most people said when you sent the letters but-”

“I didn’t _mean_ to send out the letter! I know I don’t appear to think before acting-”

“What do you mean ‘appear’? You _don’t._ ”

“-but I’m not _that_ self-sabotaging!”

“Okay. But I’m willing to do that for you. So tell me the names before I expose your deeds to Allura.” Keith smirks, cocking an eyebrow.

God is that objectively hot. Lance also has the urge to stab his drink’s straw into Keith’s piercing violet eyes.  (Haha. _Piercing_ Keith’s piercing eyes).

“Okay, okay. Um. Lotor-”

Keith this time looks like he wants to puncture Lance’s inflated stupidity with the pointy end of his straw.

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Lance waves off whatever complaints are about to leave Keith’s mouth. “Um.” he has to loudly inhale at his next confession. “Uh. And Nyma-”

“Nyma? You sent a letter to _Nyma?_ Whose boyfriend is literally going to end up in jail in twenty-years?”

By this point, Keith is basically hissing out in screams, and attracting every customer’s attention. Wincing, he smacks Keith in the forehead with the butt of his palm, ignoring how Keith looks like he’s about to bite it, and gesturing for him to _shut-up_.

“Yeah, yeah I know! Make fun of me later.”

“This was all fun at first because when I read your letter you misspelled my name as ‘K-E-E-F’ and about how that kiss we had was good even though you threw up birthday cake over my lap right after. But now you’re telling me you’re getting involved with Lotor who’ll piss on your burnt cadaver after setting you on fire, and Nyma whose boyfriend will make sure your house goes up in flames too- Lance you have _really_ bad tastes!”

“Okay, you’re with Mina right now, so I don’t know why you’re judging me!”

And Lance sorely regrets those words, because Keith is staring at him with compacted fury that once released, would probably detonate him on the spot and kill Lance in the backlash.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Lance sighs, but he doesn’t explicitly apologize because what he said was true. Yeah, maybe he was BFFLS with Mina back in elementary school years, but then she got involved with the stereotypically mean popular kids who feeds off of rumors and taunting other social groups. Really, a Shakespearean tragedy. And worse, Keith is absolutely in love with her. It sucks. Because Keith used to be that loner, that outcast. And this is stupidly selfish of Lance to say, but he used to be extremely close with Keith due to that. He was probably the first person to reach out to Keith, to defend their relationship because Lance, the popular and affectionately bad-at-flirting kid that everyone does eventually love befriending in spite of his over-dramatic and irritating antics, befriending someone like Keith Kogane who could probably break his face out of annoyance? But then after Mina, who found interest in Keith, and Keith, who liked Mina because she was the first girl next to Pidge who really talked to him (Allura and Keith brushed each other wrong back then, though now they’ve adopted a rather interesting relationship that involves making fun of each other while being that one power badass couple), and they got together. And now Keith is arguably popular, though not because of Lance, but because he’s with Mina. And also because _now_ their student body seems to notice how hot Keith is especially while scoring goals.

And Lance knows it’s greedy, but he actually quite liked it when people wouldn’t approach Keith, when Keith admired Lance for always being there for him, and would be the only person to be able to beat Pidge in Mario Kart, and would help Hunk with baking even though he’s actually a disaster.

Now, the closest way they could ever be friends is by Lance claiming they’re rivals, and whenever Keith drops by to hang out with all of them.

He has a feeling Mina said a few things about him that made Keith unwilling to spend so much time or affection on him.

A lump of tears scorches the back of his throat (he gets emotional easily. Which is why he’s no longer allowed to watch _Kung-Fu Panda_ since he drained Pidge of her tissue boxes that one day). Though he’s basically over it by now, he does actually miss having Keith as a close friend.

“No. You’re right. Me and Mina aren’t really on the best terms right now.” Keith sighs, and Lance arches an eyebrow, startled that Keith is admitting faultiness on his own.

“I mean. She dropped you to date that college freshmen, right?”

“Yeah but. I don’t know. She has her troubles, I think she did that not because she actually likes him or doesn’t like me anymore.” Keith shrugs lacklusterly, before suddenly, snapping his head up so sharply that Lance though he’d get whiplash. “Wait. But she hates you.”

“Yeah. Thanks for clarifying.” He replies dryly.

“No but. We should date.”

“Uh. Wait I’m sorry what is happening-”

“If we fake-date, then like. Mina would get jealous. She literally hates you.”

“Yeah, _thanks for clarifying._ ”

“And she’d totally want to get back with me!”

Lance takes a moment. He cannot believe Keith was judging his crushes when literally he has the most unhealthy and arguably toxic relationship, and is willing to _pursue_ it. “What? No. Mina will literally put glass in my lunch if we date.”

“Yeah, but then it’d show Shiro that you have no interest in him, because it seems as if you’re too much of a coward to step up to talk to him.”

Sputtering but unable to deny that, Lance just gnaws his straw angrily. “Wow, so we’re ignoring how your ex-” he mercifully pretends Keith didn’t recoil at that. “Is willing to decapitate my kneecaps in my sleep but all will be fine if we fake date?”

“Oh, so you’re willing to consider?”

“Seems as if this benefits you way more than it’ll benefit me.”

“I mean. That’ll send a message to Rolo that you’re not after his girl, and, Lotor might ignore you if you’re dating me. And if he exposes that message of yours, I’ll stand up for you as a boyfriend.”

“I don’t know, I mean. Not dying at the hands of Rolo and Lotor sounds great and all, but being suffocated to sleep by Mina sounds way worse.”

Keith seems not the least bothered by Lance making indications towards his ex-girlfriend being a lowkey psychopath. Like he said: unhealthy relationship. “I’ll buy you whatever diabetes shitted out in this drink for you,” he points towards Lance’s macchiato. “And, I’ll get Hunk or your mom to make garlic knots for you every day.”

Lance softens at that. He recalls mentioning garlic notes being his favorite in the passing, but he didn’t expect Keith to remember such a remote fact about him.

“And I’ll play Minecraft with you,” he gestures towards Lance’s computer with a snicker, and he squawks, because every soft and mushy friend feeling he just had for Keith, _gone_.

“So, you in?”

“Buy me another macchiato, then I’ll say yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> look @ me making a new voltron fic in spite of having an old one that i never completed and don't plan on doing so o o p
> 
>  
> 
> and look @ me, who's writing voltron fanfics even though i've never watched the show and i literally don't know what's going on in it and i'm characterizing these people based off of fics i've read on them and memes i see about them on instagram 
> 
> yall should contact me btw and DROP IDEAS BELOW!
> 
> pls comment :)


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